20 The Imperial Century, 1725-1825If such was the fate of a Great Russian aristocrat, one can imagine the
·eatment meted out to Poles, Jews, and other civilians whose loyalty was
Jnsiden:<l doubtful. In one (unidentifie.d) western district where the Polish-
peaking population was unsympathetic, a Russian subaltern later wrote:
.vherever we found that landowners had supplies of grain, wine and cattle, we
Jok them for vouchers, not bothering to calculate the exact number of men
1e had but only whether [the goods] would be in our way if we were pur-
ued'.^89 Once the armies had entered central Europe, they acted in similar
ashion if Russia's allies failed to deliver supplies. N. N. Murav'yev, who later
.chieved fame as a general in the Crimean War, was with a guards unit in
~ohemia in 1813 when this situation arose:
)ur men lost patience [he writes] and, despite the orders of their commanders, gave
attle to the armed [Czech] peasants and the Austrians; [at Otendqrf, on the Saxon
order] our guardsmen robbed everything without mercy ... took away cattle, money
md women's headgear, let the stuffing out of pillows-this was always the first thing a
;oldier did in a raid-and in short looted this unfortunate village thoroughly.^90
Lieutenant Chicherin's description of the Russians' behaviour in Saxony may
be considered a classic. The average villager, he states,
greets the [Russian] soldier amicably, following the goodness of his heart and offering
him a glass of beer. Suddenly a group of men force their way into his hous~ His wife
runs off to fetch some milk and the table is laid. Then our barbarians see a cow, grab it
and drag it off. She prays for pity, but other soldiers climb through the windows, make
their way up to the attic, dig about in the trunks and take whatever they find. The
column has already passed through the village by the time the soldiers catch up with it,
dragging along their loot.
Then a fresh party of soldiers arrives. They tear the straw off the roof of the
cottage, leaving its owner seated on a pile of boards surveying the loss of
20 years' hard work.
The column forms up and marches off. It has been here for only one night, but has
reduced a prosperous village to complete beggary. Our allies are left cursing us ... The
misfortunes that have befallen our own fatherland have so hardened our hearts that no
one thinks it shameful to take whatever he needs without payment. Each man competes
with the other in robbery and boasts of it.^91
By the time the Russian army reached France, Chicherin had been killed in
action. Murav'yev picks up the story. The proprietor of Brienne-le-Chateau
owned a valuable library and natural history collection. 'Our soldiers set to
&9 Antonovsky, 'Zapiski', p. 12; for earlier excesses see Langeron, 'Russkaya armiya', 4,
pp. 151-3.
90 Murav'yev [-Karsky], 'Zapiski', RA (1886), l, pp. 10, 16; for abuses in Saxony: [Svechin?].
'lz dnevnikov russkogo ofitsera o zagranichnom pokhode 1813 g.', RA 1900, 7, p. 293.
91 Chicherin, Dnevnik, pp. 187-8. Paskevich records that after the battle of Leipzig he could
not sleep for the noise of soldiers fishing corpses out of the river and robbing them of valuables.
Stcherbatow, Paskevitsch, p. 164.